SECOND LIFE – YOUR VIRTUAL WORLD - Koulutuskeskus Salpaus

							SECOND LIFE – YOUR VIRTUAL WORLD




  LEARNING IN AND FROM SECOND LIFE

                                OR

SECOND LIFE RULES, TIPS AND ETIQUETTE
     (these pages are not about building technique in Second Life)
These pages are based on my own experience of Second Life, feedback from the first pilot group organised in Salpaus Further
Education and readings of the following great books:
- Second Life for dummies by Sarah Robbins and Mark Bell (2007)
- Second Life, a guide to your virtual world by Brian A. White (2008)
- Second Life, the official guide, by Michael Rymaszewski , Wagner James Au, Mark Wallace, Catherine Winters, Cory
Ondrejka,, Benjamin Batstone-Cunningham (2007)
- The Entrepreneur’s guide to Second Life by Daniel Terdiman (2008)
Thanks also to my workmate Hanna Toijala for her comments.
Please also note that I have used the abbreviations SL for Second Life and RL for real life.

Georges Segura
SL Jorgito Arado
Koulutuskeskus Salpaus
                               TABLE OF CONTENTS




1. History
2. What is SL?
3. SL, a game?
4. SL geography
              4.1 General
              4.2 Salpaus Further Education presence in SL
5. What do I do here?
6. Learning and teaching
              6.1 Pedagogy and learning processes in SL
                           6.1.1 Pre-requisites to become a “SL” teacher
                           6.1.2 SL will surely give the learner:
                           6.1.3 First Impressions from learners when brought to SL
                           6.1.4 Learning processes
                                         6.1.4.1 Level A
                                         6.1.4.2 Level B
              6.2 SL support for teachers
              6.3 Top educational spaces in SL
              6.4 The phenomenon SLOODLE
7. Communication, Culture, Social Networking and Relationships
              7.1 Media
              7.2 Differences between Chat and IM
              7.3 Tips when communicating
              7.4 Tips for making good presentations and give professional lectures in
              SL
              7.5 Offering relationship
              7.6 Slang and acronyms to use in Chats or IMs
              7.7 SL Culture
8. Business in SL
              8.1 SL and RL
              8.2 SL
              8.3 Marketing tips for SL
9. Avatars
              9.1 Visual or Virtual?
              9.2 Editing your clothing meaning… yourself
10. Building in SL
11. And yet…
12. Finally, a bit or reading
1. History
It is fair to say that the ideology and the roots of SL can be found in the novel “Snow
Crash” written by Neal Stephenson in 1992. In this novel, the virtual world is called
the Metaverse. Second Life is now often referred to as Metaverse.
The words “rez” or “de-rez” come from the 1982 film “Tron”. Roots can also be found
in Star Trek show with for instance Teleportation technique.
So a strong link to science-fiction can be drawn.


2. What is SL?
What about answering: A platform and A community
I personally like Ansel Gasparini’s statement about SL.
“The SL platform is an internet-based, multiuser, 3D world construction set that
emphasizes creativity, collaboration, socializing and self-government. The SL
community is a semi-self-governing group of residents who collaboratively create, live
and interact in a 3D online world owned and operated by Linden Lab.”

I will also add that SL is somehow a 3 D wiki.
A SL user is called a resident.


3. SL, a game?
SL resembles a game but it is NOT a game because there are
   - No players
   - No levels
   - No points
   - You will never been hit by the deadly sentence “Game Over”
   - You create your own content, your own environment
   - You decide where you go, what to do, what to create.


4. SL geography
4.1 General
SL’s land is divided into Estates which are divided into Regions also referred to as
Sims (sim=simulator=server)
Regions can be divided into smaller blocks of land called parcels.
An island is also called a private region.
The hierarchy is consequently: Estate>Region>parcel.
At the moment, Second Life world comprises of:
3 continents
Around 15000 private islands have already been set up by residents.
Altitude can differ from mainland: +/- 4 m to an island: +/- 100 m
4.2 Salpaus Further Education presence in SL
Salpaus Further Education private region (i.e island) is called
Paijat-Hame Edu Island. The estate is called Salpauksen Areena.
The grid coordinates are: 1139, 1183.
These coordinates are useful if you wish to find the island through SL Land Portal.
Go to http://www.secondlife.com and then click on Land Portal.
Be aware that if you search the island via SL viewer then write Paijat-Hame or Lahti
in the Search button (top right of the viewer).
Salpaus Further Education also owns a homestead called Salpaus Nature.
Homestead regions are for quiet residential or light commercial use. They are not
intended for events, malls, or other high-impact uses. They support 3750 prims and
20 avatars, and have script limits.
The grid coordinates are: 1138, 1183.
The estate is called Salpaus Nature.
It is possible to merge two or more estates into one if necessary.
Then all settings for one estate will apply for all regions included in that merged
estate.

SL World Map is updated every 24 hours


5. What do I do here?
www.secondseeker.com
http://secondtourist.blogspot.com/index.html
    - Exploring the landscape         top place: Spaceport Alpha
    - visiting museums, memorials and art galleries
    - skydiving, horseback riding, sailing, surfing, flying, racing…
    - gambling, gaming
    - meeting other people, discussion groups
    - having dates: dinner, dancing
    - going out and enjoy night life and music
    - attending events (birthdays, weddings…)
    - shopping
    - making money
    - designing houses, vehicles, animations, hair, avatar shapes, clothes…
    - chilling
    - getting jobs (animator, builder, business owner, camping, dancer, DJ, escort,
        event host, fashion designer, gambler, landlord, model, musician, real estate
        broker, scripter, shop staff, texture artist…)
    - learning and teaching
6. Learning and teaching
I was amazed to notice that like in RL, with SL we learn in it but we also talk about
the world itself for instance what we do, where we have been to, the places we have
seen etc. vs. to an e-learning platform where we just learn in it. This was often
reported by other teachers or instructors worldwide.

6.1 Pedagogy and learning processes in SL

   6.1.1 Pre-requisites to become a “SL” teacher
(As SL teacher, I mean a teacher using SL as a platform to deliver curriculum.)
   - Very high motivation for new teaching methods and tools and strong will to
      bring those new processes to students
   - Computer literacy
   - Willing to have a closer interaction with students
   - Being able to be an animator and a moderator rather than a teacher
   - Good knowledge of English (yet in 2009) because the platform default
      language is English although we can now switch to German or French
      languages.
   - Good ability to use blogs and comment-built systems as in SL, chats and
      discussions are somehow more chaotic at first glance. One does not have to
      feel intimated and a bit of practice is needed in order to manage SL chats.
   - Being well acquainted to other e-learning platforms like eLSa / Moodle in
      Salpaus Further Education as assignments can also be given via this media.

Then the School organisation needs to organise SL trainings
   - A 20-hour training on SL technique seems to be a good amount of hours
      before launching a course in-world.
   - Following up with 2-hour training sessions once a month.
   - Strong commitments of teacher’s supervisors

So that teachers can concentrate on how to teach in SL and not on how to survive in-
world.

6.1.2 SL will surely give the learner:
   - Information
   - Open space to develop close co-operation with others
   - Different and new immersive environments plus flexibility of space
   - Real time and direct interaction. Interaction also with visitors who can enter the
       class (other instructors for instance).
   - Socialization
   - Face to face virtual meetings
   - Ability to more spontaneous responses to assignments
   - Better awareness to one’s surroundings consequently better awareness in RL.
   - Feeling to belong to a community, presence, sense of class community, high
       level of engagement, strong bond between students.
   - Simulation, role playing, discussion group possibilities.
   - Participation to social events, conferences and seminars.
   - Data visualization
   - Activities based on socio-constructivism
   - Physical representation of learner’s “self” and consequently higher capability
       to express much more easily his/her own personality.
   -   Closer relationships (students talk also about their dressing, look like in a
       casual conversation in RL…)
   -   Unrestrained environment violating the laws of physics.
   -   For shy, discrete, intimated, emotional, sensitive or less talkative students, SL
       acts as an icebreaker as for instance nobody stears at your avatar when you
       talk or write to others.
   -   For young students
       a. they will have their instructor speaking their own language. The gap
       instructor-student diminishes.
       b. A platform with familiar tools they use during their spare time so learning
       becomes more natural.

   6.1.3 First Impressions from learners when brought to SL
   THE FIRST HOUR SPENT IN SL IS CRITICAL!!!
   Be ready to face the following challenges

   -   Culture shock
   -   Finding difficult to getting acclimated
   -   Disorientating chats, no threads
   -   Need for new norms at the beginning of the studies
   -   Pre-established and negative thoughts of what SL is (a game, a strange thing,
       a thing for kids…)
   -   Too much information at a time

    6.1.4 Learning processes (yet to develop)
A rule to remember for all teachers
1 student = 1 avatar    students use their own avatar all the time and do not use
alternative avatars also called alts.

    6.1.4.1 Level A
A teacher initiating classes in SL could implement easy learning processes to start
with:
    - Break the class up into smaller groups for better fluidity and effectiveness
    - Retrieve chat history and put threads to organise conversation
    - Conference, interviews with outsiders. Very easy to organise.
       You will always find fine and experienced SL residents to come to your
       classes. They will share their experience free of charge and interact with your
       own students.
    - In addition use some e-learning platform (eLSa Moodle in Salpaus) to
       represent the whole learning process.

   6.1.4.2 Level B
More experienced teachers in addition to above mentioned tools will also want to
use:
   - Strong interaction with other tools with external links from SL to the web
   - Video screen and discussion, feedback, assignments, reports
   - Audio streaming and discussion, feedback, assignments, reports
   - Notecards for questionning, reporting, interacting with a lot of text
   - Slide projector i.e. slide screen and discussion, feedback, assignments,
      reports
   - Free-form blackboard to inform
6.2 SL support for teachers
   - Get acquainted to the Second Life Educators mailing list.
   - Get acquainted to the Second Life Researchers mailing list.
      Teachers and institutions from all around the world show the way to make
      education fun and interactive.
      Teachers and instructors will find a helpful community with those mailing lists.
      They will be able to connect with other faculties and create new relationships
      with other instructors or teachers.
   - Get acquainted to Second Life blogs and wikis (links can be found at
      http://2ndhy.blogspot.com

6.3 Top educational spaces in SL
   - Ohio University
   - Glidden, Northern Illinois University
   - Literature Alive
   - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
   - Angel Learning Isle
   - Info Island
   - New Media Consortium (NMC Campus)

6.4 The phenomenon SLOODLE
What is Sloodle?
The definition of http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/sl/index.php/Sloodle_Home_Page is self
explanatory.
“Sloodle is an Open Source project, the aim of which is to bring together the learning
support and management features of web-based LMS (Learning Management
Systems, a.k.a. VLE or Virtual Learning Environment) with rich interactive game-
technology based 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVE). Currently all Sloodle
development is based on integrating Moodle and Second Life.”
And much more information from Sloodle site about it:
http://www.sloodle.org/moodle/whitepaper.pdf
Salpaus Further Education together with Lahti University of Applied Sciences has set
up a work group whose purpose is to explore those new possibilities given by
Sloodle.
Sloodle has been set up on one of our servers and Sloodle tools have been rezzed
in-world on Paijat-Hame Edu Island.
The direct link to this place in-world is:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Paijat-Hame%20Edu%20Island/9/58/24
(mind that SL viewer must be installed onto your computer for the link to work)
When writing those lines (Jan 2009), the work group had just started to get
acquainted to Sloodle.


The last word about this section 6:
According to Gavin Dudeney, Consultant for The Consultants-E and a very active
resident in SL:
“Second Life associated to Moodle is the killer application for a creative teacher”.
7. Communication, Culture, Social Networking and Relationships

   7.1 Media
   - Chat
   - IM
   - Group IM
   - Calls

   7.2 Differences between Chat and IM

                      Chat                                          IM

                     Public                                    Private
           One to One or Many to Many                One to One or Many to Many
                Broadcast locally                   Transmitted anywhere in-world
            Saved locally on computer                 Saved locally on computer
                                              Sent to email if wished when resident is offline


Group communicating is a good way to isolate your groups from others via IM /group

   7.3 Tips when communicating
   - If you want to send a long IM to someone, create a notecard instead. Search
      his/her profile and drop the notecard into the space allowed to it “Drop
      inventory item here”
   - Only skilled SL residents can carry on multiple conversations. It is considered
      rude to keep someone waiting for your answer.
   - If another resident wants to talk to you while you are chatting or IMing: It is
      polite to say to your co-chatters or IMers if you wish to answer: “Sorry I have to
      handle an IM for a sec” before breaking away
   - Never write in capital as it is considered as being angry unless you really want
      it of course.
   - Shout only if you really need to: Ctrl – Enter. Avatars in a 100 m radius will be
      able to hear you (vs. 20 m normally).
   - Never forget the person/avatar in front of you if you have started a
      conversation with him/her.
   - Never record/film (video) a conversation without asking first.
   - Remember that like email, what you type may come back to bite you so be
      sure of what you want to share publically.
7.4 Tips for making good presentations and give professional lectures in SL
- Spend time in-world before starting making presentations. Experienced
   residents can detect at a glance inexperienced residents.
- Get a decent avatar and get rid of the standard avatar you have got when you
   first registered to Second Life
- Get acquainted to SL vocabulary like:
   + rez (bring an object in-world)
   + lag (time for things to appear or happen, a lot of lag often means a poor
   internet connection or many avatars at the same place)
   + inventory (resident’s own storage)
   + furry (animal-avatar)
   + tp (teleport)
   + HUD (Heads-up display – basically an in-world tool visible only by its owner)
   + etc.
- Master the basics of SL, camera controls…
- Before starting with your own presentations, you should attend other events
   and see other residents’ presentations to get an idea of what a presentation
   can be like in SL.
- Get dressed for your presentation
- Get your gestures ready
- Practice a lot of before presenting
- Prepare “biologically” for long presentations
- Watch yourself with another computer. Very handy to see what you don’t see
   when you are presenting
- Make a great entrance for instance with your vehicle.
- Ask the audience to use chat if they want to express questions.
- Be ready to be able to face 2 or even more chats simultaneously while
   presenting.
- Getting somebody to help you if needed (especially to answer questions via
   chat)

7.5 Offering relationship
   7.5.1 Offering friendship
   Always ask before offering friendship

   7.5.2 Offering acquaintance
   Offering friendship can be seen as an intrusion in others lives, you always can
   offer acquaintance instead with Calling Cards.
   You can still organise group IMing with a group of Calling Cards.
   7.6 Slang and acronyms to use in Chats or IMs

     afk                    away from keyboard
     np                     no problem
     avie                   avatar
     cya                    see you
     brb                    be right back
     LM                     landmark
     HUD                    Heads-up display
     imo                    in my humble opinion
     jk                     just kidding
     k or kk                ok
     imao                   laughing my ass off
     LOL                    laughing out loud
     newb, newbie, noob     new resident
     rez                    bring an object into existence
     tp                     teleport
     wb                     welcome back
     aka                    as known as



7.7 SL Culture

   Few things users should remember when wandering in SL
   - Remember there is always a human being behind each avatar.
   - In SL like in RL, you can encounter good and bad people. Remember this
     when you interact with others.
   - The impact on your RL can be significant after hanging around in SL.
     ”Second Life can get under your skin” Julia Hathor
   - Be aware of what you want to reveal about yourself in SL.
   - Prejudices are reduced in SL.
   - Be aware that in SL “we believe easily that other people are both who and
     what we want them to be” Ansel Gasparini
   - The good thing about SL is that there are no consequences and no real
     commitments.


8. Business in SL

SL is a great place for trading.
Please have a look at the figures for 2008 November: (Linden Lab sources)

                      Resident Transactions by Amount (2008 November)
                      Transaction Size          Volume
                      1L$                                     7,048,303
                      2 - 19 L$                               4,760,514
                      20 - 49 L$                              2,129,888
                      50 - 199 L$                             3,573,490
                      200 - 499 L$                            1,831,145
                      500 - 999 L$                             696,032
                      1,000 - 4,999 L$                          671,318
                      5,000 - 19,999 L$                        162,917
                      20,000 - 99,999 L$                         37,192
                      100,000 - 499,999 L$                       3,938
                      >= 500,000 L$                                304
                      Total Transaction Count                20,915,041
    8.1 SL and RL
-   It is undeniable that SL can help you create reliable clientele for your RL
    business.
-   SL is an excellent marketing tool as you can create a community around your
    products for very little investment.
-   You can create for instance reproductions of your real-world products into SL.
    Big Japanese car manufacturers already did it.
    Another example is to create virtual clothes from your real-world products and
    organise fashion events in SL.

    8.2 SL
-   It is a mistake to think that big investment is needed to be successful. You can
    establish nice shops for very little money.
-   Not all the businesses are successful. It is understandable that if your scope of
    activities is aiming at elderly people, then you may have real challenges to get
    your customers to your virtual shops even if this cannot be generalised of
    course.
-   Remember also that you often deal with pennies so don’t get to much
    enthusiastic after selling 100 of 100 LS pants; After all, this is only
    100x100 = 10 000 LS i.e. 35 Euros.

    8.3 Marketing tips for SL
    - The web works as One-to-many or Many-to-one, SL works as Many-to-Many
    - It is important to understand that we are dealing with much more than an
      e-learning platform. SL is another world.
    - One has to be ready to be inventive, swift and competitive
    - Because we are dealing with a new world, think BIG when planning
      business activities.
    - Working in SL is like working abroad. Learn the habits (culture, language…)
    - It is crucial to get acquainted to the business branch you want to trade
      in before starting your own business
    - Always when feasible, bring the products to your clients instead of
      bringing them (the clients) to you.
    - Market, market and market! Use all tools at your fingertips to achieve that
      task (SL events, blogs, www…)
    - Remember when creating products or services in SL that those could
      be reproduced in RL if needed.
    - Finally but not less important, it is crucial to clearly define your target groups.
9. Avatars

   9.1 Visual or Virtual?
   - An avatar represents your VISUAL self not your virtual self. Your VIRTUAL
      self says, creates, flies or interacts with others.
   - “Whatever you do, do not stick with your first avatar for long. It is like walking
      around with an -I am new here- billboard over your head”. Ansel Gasparini

   9.2 Editing your clothing meaning… yourself
   - Remember editing your clothes or your avatar appearance in that order
             1. Underpants and undershirts
             2. Pants and shirts
             3. Shoes and socks
             4. Jackets
             5. Other accessories like gloves
   - Very often, you only can get pieces of clothes you CANNOT modify.
   - In order to get a professional look, buy the services of relooking Specialists.
      Prepare 1000-2000 LS to pay the service and few more thousands to get a
      new shape, skin, hair, tip top clothes etc.


10. Building in SL
As this summary is about rules, etiquette and learning in Second Life, we will skip this
section


11. And yet…

“Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment
doesn’t know the first thing about either”
Marshall McLuhan

“We mostly learn from each other in Second Life” Anika Davison


12. Finally, a bit or reading
A comprehensive list of good books about Second Life can be found at:
http://www.worldcat.org/profiles/srharris19/lists/273349